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STEVENSON'S WORKSHOP 



WITH TWENTY-NINE MS. FACSIMILES 



EDITED BY/ 

WILLIAM P. TRENT 




PRINTED EXCLUSIVELY FOR MEMBERS OF 

THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY 

BOSTON MDCDXXI 



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Copyright 1921, by 

The Bibliophile Society 

All rights reserved 



DEC 2 



THE TORCH PRESS 

CEDAR RAPIDS 

IOWA 



©CU654071 



FOREWORD 

In selecting the pages of Stevenson's man- 
uscript for reproduction in this volume the 
purpose has been to include only such speci- 
mens as will have a special interest for Stev- 
ensonians, either because the pages contain 
more or less fragmentary material never be- 
fore printed, or for the reason that they show 
the initial drafts, with interesting variants, 
of pieces that afterwards became a part of 
the author's published works. 

As Professor Trent has pointed out, there 
are a number of unpublished pieces that were 
destined for A Child's Garden of Verses, 
which would not have discredited that vol- 
ume, and it is possible that future editors 
and students of Stevenson's works will wish 
to avail themselves of valuable information 
conveyed through these pages, and not other- 
wise accessible to those who are not privi- 

[7] 



leged to examine the original manuscripts, 
which are privately owned. 

It is not to be expected that the rather dis- 
connected contents of this volume will make 
a strong appeal to the general reader, but 
students and lovers of Stevenson will derive 
both knowledge and enjoyment from the va- 
rious facsimile pages showing the evolution 
of the author's thoughts. 

It is worthy of remark that the extant 
MSS. of Stevenson's earliest poems show 
very few changes, such as elisions or inter- 
lineations, — possibly because he destroyed 
the original drafts, — while those of many of 
his later poems are so changed and inter- 
lined, emended and transposed that it is ex- 
ceedingly difficult to decipher them. Al- 
though the writing in some of these photo- 
graphic reproductions is so small as to re- 
quire the use of a strong reading glass, they 
are nevertheless given in their original size, 
and are almost as clear as the originals them- 
selves. 

It needs no argument to convince the bibli- 
ophile that in the examination of an author's 
chirography there is an element of satisfac- 

[8] 



tion not to be experienced in reading cold 
type ; for as a photograph discloses the line- 
aments of the face, so does an author's hand- 
writing convey an unequivocal reflection of 
his mind and personality. These manuscript 
facsimiles will furthermore furnish an inti- 
mate and comprehensive exposition of the 
methods employed by Stevenson in rounding 
out and polishing his work, and will be of 
unquestionable interest to all who admire his 
writings. Mutilated and complex as some of 
the pages are, many readers will find plea- 
sure in deciphering them, in puzzling out un- 
certain and baffling words, and in placing 
their own estimate upon the literary quality 
of various unprinted poems and fragments 
of poems which were discarded either by 
Stevenson or by early editors of his works. 
For a case in point, let the reader turn to the 
verses entitled "Windy Nights," at page 25 
of this volume and judge for himself whether 
the poem did not suffer a severe injury by 
the omission of the last four stanzas. Only 
the first two were ever printed, but fortun- 
ately the others were preserved in the note 
book in which they were originally written. 

[9] 



Again, the poem at pages 56-59, wherein 
Stevenson commemorates his appearance 
and discomfort while wearing a respirator 
with a hideous " snout" for the inhalation of 
pine oil, although not to be regarded as a 
thing of idyllic beauty* is as characteristic 
of Stevenson as anything he ever wrote. He 
laments — 

For ladies ' love I once was fit, 
But now am rather out of it. 



And nothing can befall — damn ! 
To make me uglier than I am. 

While it is doubtful if one literary critic in 
a hundred would recommend the piece for its 
poetic qualities, yet many a Stevenson enthu- 
siast will welcome its rescue from the dis- 
card. 

Among other unused verses which have a 
peculiarly personal interest — because in 
writing them Stevenson almost certainly 
drew upon his recollections of a healthless 
childhood — are those about the lollypops, 
written for his Penny Whistles, where he 
says : — 

[10] 



I wish I had the lollypops 

From all the apothecary's shops; 

They only give me one a day 

To take the nasty taste away. 

How can they leave the sweets about 

And give their nasty medicines out f 

Stevenson had great difficulty in deciding 
what to call his collection of poems for chil- 
dren (now known as A Child's Garden of 
Verses), and although he had still greater 
difficulty in getting it published, it eventually 
contributed much to his fame. In a letter to 
his old nurse, Alison Cunningham, dated 
February 1883, he says: "I have just seen 
that the book in question must be dedicated 
to Alison Cunningham, the only person who 
will really understand it. . . . This little 
book, which is all about my childhood, should 
indeed go to no other person than you, who 
did so much to make that childhood happy. " * 

The next month he wrote to W. E. Henley : 
"I am going to dedicate 'em to Ciunmy; it 
will please her, and lighten my burthen of 



i It is doubtful if many readers realize that this now world- 
renowned little book is almost wholly autobiographical. 



[»] 



ingratitude. A low affair is the Muse busi- 
ness ! 

"O, I forgot.— As for the title, I think 
Nursery Verses the best. Poetry is not the 
strong point of the text, and I shrink from 
any title that might seem to claim that qua- 
lity; otherwise we might have Nursery 
Muses, or Songs of Innocence (but that were 
a blasphemy), or Byrnes of Innocence — the 
last not bad — or— an idea — The Jews' 
Harp, or — now I have it,— The Penny 
Whistle, . . . The Penny Whistle is 
the name for me. 

"Fool! this is all wrong,— here is the true 
name : — 

Penny Whistles 
For Small Whistlers 

"The second title is queried; it is perhaps 
better as simply Penny Whistles." 

The book finally went to print as Penny 
Whistles, but when the proof sheets came out, 
Stevenson disapproved of the name, and for 
various reasons the publication was delayed. 
The next year, after Treasure Island had 
brought him into popular repute as a writer, 
the projected Penny Whistles volume came 

[12] 



out under the title of A Child's Garden of 
Verses. It is said that only two copies of the 
little Penny Whistles book are now known to 
be in existence. 

It should be borne in mind that much of 
the inedited matter shown in these facsimiles 
was written before Stevenson achieved re- 
nown, and this may have been a determining 
factor with the author, as well as with con- 
temporary advisers, editors and publishers, 
in judging the quality of the rejected pieces. 
Many of these appear among the manu- 
scripts written for Penny Whistles (after- 
wards A Child's Garden of Verses), con- 
cerning which Stevenson wrote as follows 
to his friend and literary counsellor, Sir Sid- 
ney Colvin, — "If you don't like 'A Good 
Boy,' I do ... I will delete some of 
those condemned, but not all. ' ' 

H. H. H. 



[13] 



STEVENSON'S WOBKSHOP 

By Professor William P. Trent 

Readers in these days of well nigh uni- 
versal education seem to be as numerous as 
the leaves of trees, and, as with leaves, no 
two are exactly alike. They may be roughly 
classified, however, and of the many cate- 
gories into which they fall, two stand out, 
even upon the most superficial observation. 
Some readers are concerned mainly with the 
incontinent enjoyment or utilization of what 
a book gives them, tearing the heart out of it, 
as certain famous public characters have 
been known to do. These are very tigers in 
their reading. Other readers suggest more 
peaceful animals, especially such as merely 
browse and graze. Their enjoyment may be 
not a whit less genuine, and their utilization 
may often be more beneficial both to them- 
selves and to others, but they are far less 

[iS] 



swift, flashing, compulsive in their processes. 
Their likes and dislikes are less marked, 
their enthusiasms and their aversions less 
contagious. 

These two classes shade, of course, into 
each other, and the same person may belong 
to the first class in respect to one line of 
reading, and to the second in respect to an- 
other line. But it is scarcely a rash general- 
ization to affirm that collectors of first edi- 
tions, students who enjoy tracing the evolu- 
tion of a masterpiece from an imperfect man- 
uscript draft to the printed pages of the 
writer's final authoritative version, connois- 
seurs of illustration and binding — in short, 
bibliophiles of most sorts — have no close re- 
lationship with the tiger class of readers. 
We may forbear to insist upon their resemb- 
lance to cattle chewing the cud, but we shall 
run little risk in averring that they are more 
domesticated than the springing and rending 
denizens of the jungle. 

It is clearly to the less predacious reader 
that the present volume, which is designed to 
give a glimpse into Stevenson's workshop, 
will make its main appeal. No such import- 

[16] 



ance attaches to it as belongs to the collection 
of the facsimiles of the manuscripts of Mil- 
ton's early poems preserved at Trinity Col- 
lege, Cambridge, yet where, in the absence of 
the manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays and 
poems, can such priceless documents as those 
from Milton's pen be found? It is not fair 
to bring into comparison with what we have 
to offer such a treasure of superlative worth 
as Milton 's draft of ' ' Lycidas. ' ' That would 
scarcely be eclipsed in glory if some fortun- 
ate excavator were to recover for us that 
1 ' One precious tender-hearted scroll of pure 
Simonides" for which Wordsworth longed. 
But it is fair to ask who among modern 
writers has awakened more widespread in- 
terest in the phases of his personality and the 
evolution of his genius than Robert Louis 
Stevenson. To the better understanding of 
those phases and of that evolution the fac- 
similes here gathered and for the first time 
presented will make, it is believed, a contri- 
bution of definite value, and in this belief we 
may now begin to scrutinize them after two 
points have been briefly emphasized. 

The hasty reader, whether or not he be- 

[17] 



long to the tiger class, will do well to remem- 
ber that in an author's erasures, hesitations, 
and afterthoughts, as exhibited in the first 
drafts of his writings, not only may the curi- 
ous take legitimate interest and pleasure, but 
the thoughtful may find a point of view from 
which to obtain a better insight into the sig- 
nificance of the published work. If that 
work be of classic excellence, the possession 
of the original manuscript, apart entirely 
from sentiment and financial value, may be 
of very great benefit both to students and to 
readers. Then, too, for the literary neophyte 
at the outset of his career there is often profit 
to be derived from a close study of the work 
of some great forerunner in its making. The 
taste of a portion of the lettered world, there- 
fore, for such relics of great authors as we 
here present is much more than a mere indi- 
cation of sentimentalism ; it is a taste born 
of knowledge and experience. 

Of the twenty-nine facsimiles given in this 
volume, the greater part of which are taken 
from a note book 1 used by Stevenson through 

1 It is distinguished by a slip of paper marked " R. L. S. — 
C, " pasted on the front cover. 

[iS] 






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a number of years, more than a third have 
to do with what is undoubtedly the best 
known and most cherished part of his poetry, 
A Child's Garden of Verses. Facsimile No. 
1 shows a draft of the famous stanzas en- 
titled "A Good Play," which begin with the 
lines — 

We built a ship upon the stairs, 
All made of the back-bedroom chairs, 

and constitute the thirteenth poem in A 
Child's Garden. The variations between the 
poem as we read it today and the form it 
took in Penny Whistles (No. 15), the ex- 
tremely scare forerunner of A Child's Gar- 
den, are but trifling, if w r e may judge from 
the statement made in the superb catalogue 
of the Harry Elkins Widener Collection of 
Stevensoniana ; but here we have several in- 
teresting particulars brought to light. 

We loaded it with sofa pillows, 

as line three originally stood, was happily 
changed, perhaps speedily, to the present 
version — 

And filled it full of sofa pillows. 

[19] 



What is now the third and last division of 
the short poem was at first made the second 
stanza of three, all of which, as is not the 
case at present, were intended to consist of 
four lines each. The last of the original 
stanzas together with the five lines written to 
the side of the original draft of the poem, 
finish out, with some eliminations, the second 
division of the verses as we now have them, 
and one cannot but conclude that Stevenson 
became eventually as skilful an artificer of 
his poem as the two children were of their 
ship. We are perhaps sorry to have the 
young mariners go without their "plate of 
breakfast crumbs," to say nothing of "half 
an ounce of sugar plums," but "papa" must 
have been glad that they did not take his hat. 

The other verses in facsimile No. 1 are not 
specially important, but some readers may 
wish that Stevenson had finished the line 
dealing with Will, the would-be soldier. 
Doubtless "keep" would have been used as 
a rhyme for "sweep," but whether "step," 
or "line," or something else would have been 
preserved in orderly fashion, must remain a 
pleasant mystery. — 

[20] 



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Jim would be a sailor, and Tom would be a 

sweep, 
Rose would be a baker, to eat the sugar bread ; 
But Will would be a soldier, with the [men in 

line to keep] , 
And he himself a-marching so finely at the head. 

Facsimile No. 2 gives us drafts of two 
poems that appear in A Child's Garden (No. 
7, "Pirate Story," which is Penny Whistles 
No. 8; and No. 8, "Foreign Lands," which 
is Penny Whistles No. 9). The destinations 
of the young adventurers of the first poem 
read in our draft — 

Shall it be to India a-steering of the boat, 
To Providence or Malaga, or off to Malabar ? 

The second line, except for punctuation, 
reads in Penny Whistles as it does here ; but 
in the first edition of A Child's Garden, Stev- 
enson — whether to get rid of the repetition 
"Mala," or for some other reason — made 
the line read — 

To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar. 

Between writing the present draft and 
printing in Penny Whistles and later A 

[21] 



Child's Garden, he doubtless discovered for 
himself, or else was told by some friend, that 
Malabar is to be found on the map of India, 
and he proceeded to substitute " Africa" for 
"India," to the distinct advantage of his 
poem. The close reader of the facsimile will 
observe other variations, and will probably 
conclude that Stevenson's changes were 
clearly for the better. 

This conclusion appears to hold for the 
alterations to be found in ' ' Foreign Lands, ' ' 
but it is permissible to wonder whether the 
lines in Penny Whistles and A Child's Gar- 
den which run — 

To where the grown-up river slips 
Into the sea among the ships, 

charming though they be, are not somewhat 
more sophisticated and less in character than 
those Stevenson wrote in the present draft, — 

Till I at last should catch a glance 
Of vessels sailing off to France. 

A similar query applies, although perhaps 
less pertinently, to the lines of the Child's 
Garden version running — 

[22] 



I saw the dimpling river pass 
And be the sky 's blue looking-glass, 

which here and in Penny Whistles appear 
as — 

I saw the river dimple by, 
Holding its face up to the sky. 

On turning, however, to facsimile No. 3, 
we perceive that Stevenson did not finish 
"Foreign Lands" on Number 2. He repeated 
the first two lines of stanza four, as we have 
the poem, then wrote two other lines which 
he forgot to cross out, then two lines which 
he did cross out, then went along for eight 
lines, the last four constituting, w r ith some 
variations, the fifth and last stanza of the 
poem as it now stands; the four preceding 
forming a charming passage, the first line of 
which may be, as we have seen, sophisticated, 
but can scarcely be held to lessen the beauty 
of the whole. — 

To where the grown-up river slips 
Along between the anchored ships, 
And lastly, between harbor walls, 
Into the bright Atlantic falls. 

[23] 



If these four lines do not bear strong 
testimony to Stevenson's mastery of ca- 
dence, the present editor's ear is greatly at 
fault. 

The remaining portions of facsimile No. 3 
throw light on the methods Stevenson used 
for securing rhymes, and exhibit a frag- 
mentary draft of a sprightly play poem, 
which, had he persevered, might have been 
fashioned into something good. — 

Bring out the dolls, bring out the blocks, 
Bring out the horse and dray, 

And let us in our oldest frocks, 
At once proceed to play. 

More important, however, is the fact that 
it gives us, in connection with facshnile No. 
4, an interesting draft of "Windy Nights" 
(No. 10 of Penny Whistles and No. 9 of A 
Child's Garden), which exhibits significant 
variations from the printed text, and fur- 
nishes no less than four entirely new stanzas. 
It is difficult to understand why these im- 
portant stanzas were omitted, as the poem 
may be regarded by most readers as incom- 
plete without them. From the two sheets 

[24] 



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we are now able to give the first printed 
edition of the whole original poem as fol- 
lows : — 

WINDY NIGHTS 

Whenever the moon and stars are set, 

Whenever the wind is high, 
All night long in dark and wet 

A man goes riding by. 
Late in the night when the fires are out, 
Why does he gallop and gallop about? 

Whenever the trees are crying aloud, 

And ships are sinking at sea, 
By, on the highway, low and loud, 

By at the gallop goes he. 
By at the gallop he goes, and then 
By he comes back at the gallop again. 

Where is he riding at night so late, 

With nobody riding besides? 
Hark, as the cinders fall in the grate, 

To the ring of his spurs as he rides. 

Where is he riding at night so late, — 

Why does he ride so fast? 
Why does he come when the wind is great 

And gallop before the blast? 

[2 5 ] 



Galloping ever and all night long, 

Galloping still when the wind is strong, — 

Where and where and where can he go ? 
Who and who can he be? 

Maybe St. Nicholas, to and fro, 

To buy my presents for me — 
Eiding and riding as hard as he can, 

Bringing a drum to a good little man. 

To the side of the final verses of " Foreign 
Lands" on facsimile No. 3 and immediately 
above the opening stanzas of " Windy 
Nights, ' ' Stevenson wrote what appear to be 
the titles of eight contemplated poems, two 
of which titles he eliminated. Of the re- 
maining six "The Lamplighter" seems to 
have come into existence as No. 40 of Pen- 
ny Whistles and No. 30 of A Child's Gar- 
den. "Wind at Night" is doubtless but an- 
other title for "Windy Nights," with regard 
to which one may remark that Stevenson 
seems always to have been singularly sensi- 
tive to the effects produced by the wind, and 
that galloping at night-time exercised a fas- 
cinating influence on his imagination. An- 
other title, "Sick Child," 1 probably became 

1 There is a poem in the first book of Underwoods (No. 26) 

[26] 



later "The Land of Counterpane" (No. 18 of 
Penny Whistles and No. 16 of A Child's 
Garden) . 

Facsimile No. 4 shows at the side of the 
concluding stanzas of "Windy Nights" two 
quatrains which appeared later in Penny 
Whistles (No. 11), but of which only the 
first and third lines seem to have been used, 
with slight changes, in A Child's Garden to 
usher in the tenth poem, the verses entitled 
"Travel." Since the present draft varies 
from the Penny Whistles version as repro- 
duced in the Widener Catalogue, it may be 
well to print the stanzas as they appear in 
the facsimile : — 

I should like to rise and go 

And wander on my feet, 
Where all the golden apples grow 

And things are nice to eat. 

All down beside the water brooks, 

And past the harbour bar, 
And o 'er the hills, in story books, 

Where bears and lions are. 

entitled ' ' The Sick Child. ' ' — See also the Bibliophile edition of 
1916, II, 146-148 — but it is very doubtful whether Stevenson 
had this in mind when he was jotting down these titles. 

[27] 



Probably Stevenson intended to make a 
separate poem of the couplets written imme- 
diately below these quatrains, but he appears 
to have left them unutilized. The following 
lines are quotable : — 

All the trees that stood around 

Dropped crumpled leaves upou the ground ; 

All the winds, so soft and sweet, 

Kept chasing leaves away to eat j 1 

And all the squirrels up the trees 

Were eating beechnuts, if you please. 

Finally, facsimile No. 4 gives us a draft of 
"Singing" (No. 12 of Fenny Whistles and 
No. 11 of A Child's Garden). Perhaps the 
variations, although slight, justify the print- 
ing of the two stanzas : — 

Of speckled eggs the birdie sings 

And nests among the trees ; 
The sailors sing of ropes and things 

And ships upon the seas. 
The children sing in far Japan, 

The children sing in Spain, 
The organ with the organ man 

Is singing in the rain. 

i The reader will observe that occasionally a little punctua- 
tion has been introduced. 

[28] 






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The fifth is one of the most interesting of 
all the facsimiles. Optimists will undoubt- 
edly prefer "Happy Thought" (No. 30 of 
Penny Whistles and No. 24 of A Child's 
Garden) which runs — 

The world is so full of a number of things, 
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings 

to the couplet at the head of the facsimile 
page — 

The world is so great and I am so small, 
I do not like it at all, at all — 

but psychologists and unsentimental readers 
may wonder whether the latter expression of 
child self-consciousness is not more realistic 
than the exuberance displayed in the more 
widely known verses. 1 

The quatrain which follows in the manu- 
script needs no comment, and this is measur- 

i Headers of Sir Graham Balfour 's biography of Stevenson 
may recall that the biographer quotes this earlier couplet in a 
footnote (London, 1901, I, 34), and connects it with "the sense 
of disproportion" which sometimes haunted Stevenson in his 
youth. The later version, "Happy Thought," is for Sir 
Graham Balfour ' ' brave and characteristic ; ' ' for Mr. Gilbert 
K. Chesterton it seems to be something much more wonderful. 
(See, J. A. Hammerton's "Stevensoniana," Edinburgh, 1910, 
p. 150.) 

[29] 



ably true of the draft of "At the Sea-Side" 
(No. 3 of both Penny Whistles and A Child's 
Garden). In the seaside verses, as usually 
printed, a period is placed after "cup" in the 
fourth line. Since Stevenson used no punct- 
uation here, some readers may feel that the 
lines would be improved by substituting a 
semicolon, or possibly a comma. 

The next quatrain, though negligible, may 
serve to remind us of the opening line of 
"My Treasures" (No. 5 of "The Child 
Alone ") . The version of the famous and ad- 
mirable "Bed in Summer" (No. 1 of both 
Penny Whistles and A Child's Garden) 
shows, not only that Stevenson first wrote 
"older" for the better "grown-up," but also 
that he added in the present draft what seem 
to be two entire new stanzas and the begin- 
ning of a third. — 

In winter I get up at night 
And dress by yellow candlelight ; 
In summer, quite the other way, 
I have to go to bed by day. 

I have to go to bed and see 

The birds still hopping on the tree, 

[30] 



Or hear the older people's feet 
Still going past me in the street. 

And does it not seem hard to you, 
When all the sky is clear and blue, 
And I should like so much to play, 
To have to go to bed by day 1 

When big and strong and wise I grow 
I forth to foreign lands will go ; 
And pleasant places I shall see, 
With berries growing on the tree. 

Lions and tigers, dogs and trees, 
And bullpups march along with these ; 
I shut my eyes for all are shy, 
Still in my bed I seem to lie ; 

Yet as the crowd 

That the poet was well advised in retaining 
only the three published stanzas of the verses 
is a judgment which will be disputed by but 
few readers, although most Stevensonians 
will doubtless welcome the opportunity to 
read the other two. 

It is not certain whether in the eighteenth 
line Stevenson intended to write "bullpups' 7 
or "bullfrogs," but since the bullpup would 
be likely to have an advantage over his am- 

[31] 



phibious neighbor in keeping step with the 
procession, we have given him the prefer- 
ence. The initial letter of the second syllable 
certainly resembles Stevenson's "f," but on 
the other hand, the final letters seem unques- 
tionably to be his characteristic "ps." It is 
barely possible that the last letter is "p" in- 
stead of "ps," and that the youthful versifier 
may have had a special "pup" in mind whom 
he excluded from the category of common 



"dogs." 



A draft of the poem, "The Land of Coun- 
terpane," which appears on facsimile No. 6, 
exhibits interesting variations from the 
printed text. The tray upon the knees seems 
finally to have been dispensed with, as well 
as the idea of making the "country all com- 
plete." In addition we seem to be justified 
in inferring that the excellent concluding 
stanza of the printed versions, beginning "I 
w r as the giant great and still," was an after- 
thought. The original version in our draft 
runs as follows : — 

When I was ill and lay in bed 
I had two pillows at my head ; 

[32] 






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And all my toys beside me lay 
[Upon my knees and in a tray] 
To keep me happy all the day. 
Sometimes for an hour or so 
I watched my leaden soldiers go, 
[7 placed my soldiers row by row 
And then I sat and watched] 1 
"With different uniforms and drills, 
Among the bedclothes, through the hills, 
And sometimes sent my ships in fleets 
All up and down across the sheets ; 
Or brought my trees and houses out 
And set them here and there about 
To make a country all complete. 

This poem, we thought, was possibly antic- 
ipated on facsimile No. 3 by the jotted title 
1 ' Sick Child. ' ' Perhaps another of those jot- 
ted titles, "Apothecary's bottles," was a 
forecast of the unpublished quatrain found 
at one side of the top of facsimile No. 6 : — 

In all the tidy chemists' shops 
They have things full of lollypops. 

i This incomplete, but not stricken out, couplet which would 
doubtless have ended with ' ' them go, ' ' was written, as the fac- 
simile will show, to the side and partly over the line "Some- 
times for an hour or so." 

[33] 



How can they leave the sweets about 
And give their 1 nasty medicines out? 

When it is recalled that much of Steven- 
son's childhood was spent in illness, it will 
not seem strange that " chemist's shops," 
' ' nasty medicines ' ' and the ' ' lollypops ' ' made 
an abiding impression upon his mind. In 
another place (on facsimile No. 17) the 
thought of the foregoing lines is expressed in 
another form : — 

I wish I had the lollypops 
From all the apothecary's shops; 
They only give me one a day 
To take the nasty taste away. 

Neither of these versions would have dis- 
graced A Child's Garden, but Stevenson was 
perhaps right in discarding them. Whether, 
if he had continued the poem begun with a 
reference to the candle light and the organ 
man, we should have had another child's clas- 
sic must remain in doubt ; but it is plain that 

1 As the reader will perceive from the facsimile, Stevenson 
was not clear as to the propriety of inserting this word. It 
makes the line too long, therefore we have omitted the second 
word "then," as he would perhaps have done in retaining the 
word he inserted between the lines. 

[34] 



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lie thought enough of the stanzas that finish 
out the sheet to preserve them, with some 
changes, for "The Child Alone," where they 
are entitled "My Ship and I." 

Facsimile No. 7 contains, besides the play 
dedication dated Davos, 1881, four drafts of 
poems later included in Penny Whistles and 
A Child's Garden, a quatrain included in 
Penny Whistles, but not in A Child's Gar- 
den, and another quatrain, apparently un- 
published. 

The draft of "A Thought" (No. 2 of both 
Penny Whistles and A Child's Garden) cor- 
responds with the version given in the former 
as is indicated by the facsimile to be found in 
the Widener Catalogue. That authority (p. 
87) states that the versions of Penny Whis- 
tles and of the first edition of A Child's Gar- 
den agree. We are therefore left wondering 
why some editions of Stevenson's poems 
leave out the " so" of the first line — 

It is so very nice to think. 

The draft of "Young Night Thought" 
(No. 4 of both Penny Whistles and A Child's 
Garden) omits the closing couplet of the 

[35] 



third stanza, if we may judge from this 
single sheet of facsimiles. This couplet runs 
in Penny Whistles — 

Though I 'm so sleepy, yet I find 
That I can never stay behind. 

In A Child's Garden it is bettered to — 

For every kind of beast and man 
Is marching in that caravan. 

The other features of the present draft 
distinguishing it from the printed versions 
may be easily determined, and seem to need 
no comment. — 

All night long, and every night, 
As soon as mama puts out the light, 
I see the people marching by 
As plain as day before my eye. 

Armies and emperors and kings 

All carrying different kinds of things, 

And marching in so strange a way 

I never saw the like by day. 

So fine a show was never seen 

At the great circus on the green. 

At first they move a little slow, 
But still the faster on they go, 

[36] 



And still beside them close I keep 
Until we reach the town of sleep. 1 

The draft of "The Whole Duty of Chil- 
dren " (No. 5 of both Penny Whistles and A 
Child's Garden) shows that Stevenson at 
first began with the line — 

A child should do his best to grow — 

and then improved it to the present form — 

A child should always say what's true. 

The punctuation of our manuscript draft 
that follows may seem better than that of the 
printed version: — 

A child should always say what \s true 
And speak when he is spoken to ; 
And behave mannerly at table, 
At least as far as he is able. 

The draft of "Bain" (No. 7 of Penny 

i It is needless to call attention to the fact that some punctu- 
ation has been introduced, but it is not needless to say that the 
statement that Stevenson omitted the closing couplet of the 
third stanza is an assumption. He may not have intended at 
first to divide his couplets into stanzas, although the presence 
of a short line between the first and second stanzas and at the 
top of the final stanza, as these are printed, seema to indicate 
that from the beginning he had a stanzaie division in mind. 

[37] 



Whistles and No. 6 of A Child's Garden) 
shows that Stevenson first wrote "tower" 
for "field," and that he originally intended 
"the grassy ground" to rhyme with "a- 
round." The reader will note other varia- 
tions, and may determine the punctuation 
for himself : — 

The rain is raining all around, 

It falls on field and tree ; 
It rains upon the umbrellas here, 

And out on ships at sea. 

Some may feel that this draft, although it 
is less smooth than the printed text, does not 
really suffer on that account. Others may 
feel that the point raised is as undetermin- 
able as it is unimportant. Not so unimpor- 
tant is the question whether Stevenson, des- 
pite the short line drawn between the stan- 
zas, meant at first to give "Rain" two stan- 
zas, the second running as follows : — 

Now all the roads are full of mire, 

Both in and out of town, 
And children sit beside the fire 

And hear it patter down. 

The fact that the first and third lines 

[38] 



rhyme just as the same lines were originally 
intended to do in the first stanza, and the 
farther fact that the short line, or dash, 
might have been drawn between the stanzas 
after Stevenson determined to alter and keep 
only the first of the two seem to give ground 
for the assumption that the poem at the be- 
ginning consisted of two stanzas. If this be 
so, one is led to inquire why the second was 
omitted from the printed editions. Perhaps 
Stevenson found that it lacked the note of 
humor — to the adult mind, of course — pre- 
sent in the first. 

The two remaining scraps of verse found 
on facsimile No. 7 need not long detain us. 
The quatrain, — 

Papa is away to the office I see 
And Johnnie has gone to the school ; 

Come, Peter, and sit in the corner with me, 
And pretend to be hunting a bull 

was used as No. 6 of Penny Whistles and was 
called "The Bull Hunt," — the version given 
in the Widener Catalogue differing slightly 
from our draft. Then Stevenson discarded 
the verses when he issued A Child's Garden. 

[39] 



As we shall see later, he seems to have liked 
the names of John and Peter. 

Whether he was wise in not finishing the 
other set of verses on the upper left-hand 
side or, at least, in not using the first four 
lines in his printed collections, is a question 
which may divide readers. The lines run : — 

You must not suppose that a child is a fool, 
For 1 1 have been thinking for long 

That a man is no better for going to school 
And the old people all in the wrong. 

Facsimiles 8 and 9 go naturally together. 
The draft of "The Land of Nod," when com- 
pared with the versions of Penny Whistles 
(No. 19) and of A Child's Garden (No. 17), 
is chiefly interesting as exhibiting Steven- 
son's skill in changing what seems to have 
been the original order of his stanzas. The 
draft, omitting the changes, runs : — 

From breakfast on through all the day 
At home among my friends I stay, 
But every night I go abroad 
Afar into the land of nod. 

i It looks as if Stevenson first wrote ' ' Hence. ' ' 

[40] 



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Curious things are there for me, 
Both things to eat and things to see ; 
And many frighting sights abroad 
Till morning in the land of nod. 

Try as I like to find the way, 
I never can get there by day, 
Nor can remember plain and clear 
The curious music that I hear. 

And all alone I have to go* — 

It 's very dangerous, don 't you know — 

All alone beside the streams 

And up the mountain sides of dreams. 

The cancelled lines at the left, which again 
bring in John and Peter, together with the 
apparently companion couplet, are not 
greatly missed from Penny Whistles and A 
Child's Garden. The draft of the poem "My 
Shadow 7 " (No. 20 of Penny Whistles and 
No. 18 of A Child's Garden), like the draft 
of "The Land of Nod," is interesting in the 

* It is not clear whether the word ' ' And, ' ' which precedes 
"All" in this line, belongs to this poem or to the one struck 
out at the side; but in all probability it should go in here, as 
it completes the line. In the same line the fifth word might be 
"love" instead of "have," but "have" seems to continue the 
mood of the preceding couplets, and it harmonizes with the line 
that follows. 

[41] 



light it throws on Stevenson's art of building 
up his poems, — not merely in its arrange- 
ment of stanzas, but also in its shifting of 
couplets. 

The couplets that follow "My Shadow" on 
facsimile No. 9 are probably not to be taken 
as forming a single poem, since the first is 
separated from the others by a dash 1 and is 
to be found by itself, under the title, "The 
Hunt Interrupted," as No. 21 of Penny 
Whistles, where "I'm going to" takes the 
place of "I mean to:" — 

Hi! nursie, you come back again, behind the 

deodar, 
For that's the place I mean to hunt, where all 

the tigers are. 

While probably well advised in printing 
this as four lines in Penny Whistles, Steven- 
son seems to have been better advised in 
dropping it entirely from A Child's Garden. 

Whether he would not have done well to 
retain and perfect the remaining couplets is 

i This may, however, have been an afterthought, and it will 
be observed that the facsimile seems to show a semicolon at the 
end of the second line. See G. Balfour 's biography, 1901, I, page 
41, note 1, for an interesting touch connected with this couplet. 

[42] 



a question we need spend no time over ; but 
they are surely good enough to be printed 
here, although not new in their entirety, the 
second couplet having served as a basis for 
the second couplet of "A Good Boy" 1 (No. 
25 of Penny Whistles and No. 20 of A Child's 
Garden). — 

The children all go homeward — you can hear 

the mothers cry, 
The little birds are silent now upon the treetops 

high. 2 
At last the golden sun begins to go behind the 

wood, — 
Another day is over, and I know that I 've been 

good. 

I love the even shadow as I loved the noonday 
sun, 

i Of this poem, Stevenson wrote, in November 1883, to Mrs. 
Milne, the playmate of his childhood : ' ' You were a capital fel- 
low to play: how few there were who could! . . . See 'A 
Good Boy' in the Penny Whistles, much of the sentiment of 
which is taken direct from one evening at the Bridge of Allan, 
when we had a great play with the little Glasgow girl. ' ' 

2 This couplet, it will be observed, has been apparently can- 
celled; and as a matter of fact the poem might begin with the 
next line ; but, as it seems to divide itself into stanzas of four 
lines each, it is doubtless best to pay no attention to the can- 
cellation. 

[43] 



And cousin Tom has painted me the picture of a 

gun. 
I pounded little pebbles on the beach below the 

trees, 
And climbed the sandy mountain in the nettles 

to my knees. 

So now along the shadows I'm returning home 
to bed, 

And then when all is over, and my evening pray- 
er is said, 

I'll lie among the pleasant sheets and close my 
happy eyes, 

And wait until time comes to call me by surprise. 

Returning now for a moment to "My Sha- 
dow" (facsimiles 8 and 9), we find that that 
poem has left its trace in a line or two on 
facsimile No. 18. This, which must be treat- 
ed along with Numbers 16 and 17, since all 
deal with Stevenson's famous respirator, 
contains also other fragments that seem to 
belong to A Child's Garden, at least, to have 
been originally intended for it. — 

This is the mill that makes the bread, 

might, one fancies, have been worked into a 

[44] 



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satisfactory poem, and this is also true of the 
unused lines — 

Across the road and past the dene 
I know a meadow white and green. 
So high the grass and daisies grow, 
It must he where the fairies go. 

The reader will find other fragments of 
verse on the crowded sheet, and he may be 
pleased with what almost constitutes an en- 
tire new poem : — 

I rose before they told me to, 

When all the lawn was thick with dew; 1 

It was the very peep of day, 

And night had hardly gone away. 

The dew stood in the butter cup, — 

Only the birds and me were up, — 

All the trees stood very still, 

Both round the house and on the hill, 

And all the shadows lay so long — 

Leaving now — not without regret — A 
Child's Garden of Verses, we come to the 
miscellaneous sheets of facsimiles. First in 
interest among these are Numbers 10 and 11, 

' Stevenson appears to spell "due," but he writes the word 
correctly later. 

[45 1 



containing an early draft of "In Memoriam 
F. A. S." (No. 27 of the first book of Under- 
woods), Stevenson's famous and deeply mov- 
ing elegy on the young son of Mrs. Sitwell, 
later Lady Colvin. The verses were written 
at Davos in 1881, and they are here reprint- 
ed, as nearly as possible as they stand in the 
facsimile, together with the final version of 
the poem as it appears in Underwoods. The 
reader will note that Stevenson seems to have 
begun to write in a somewhat Tennysonian 
blank verse, which was happily abandoned 
for rhyme. — 

If that which should be is not ; that which is, 
Oh God, so greatly should not be ; and all 
From Dawn to sunset and from birth to grave 
Be, or appear, Oh God, evil alone ; 
If that be so, then silence were the best ; 
Yet, broken heart, remember, Remember, 
All has not been evil from the start. 
April came to bloom at least, and no December 
Laid its chilling frosts upon the head or heart. 
Life indeed of months, and not of years ; a being 
Trod the flowery April blithely 1 for a while, 
Took his fill of music, joy of thought and seeing, 

i The MS. seems to spell blythely. 

[46] 



Came and stayed and went, nor ever ceased to 

smile. 
Came and went, a dream; and now when all is 

finished, 
You alone have trod the melancholy stream. 
Yours the pang, but his, his the undiminished, 
Undecaying glory, undisturbed dream. 
All that life contains of torture, toil and treason, 
Shame, dishonour*-- death, to him were but a 

name. 
Here for all his youth he dwelt — 
Ere the day of sorrow, departed, as he came — 
Here a youth he stayed through all the singing 

season. 

The following is the final version as it ap- 
peared in Undertvoods : — 

IN MEMORIAM F. A. S. 

Yet, stricken heart, remember, O remember 
How of human days he lived the better part. 

April came to bloom and never dim December 
Breathed its killing chills upon the head or 
heart. 

Doomed to know not winter, only spring, a being 

Trod the flowery April blithely for a while, 
Took his fill of music, joy of thought and seeing, 

[47] 



Came and stayed and went, nor ever ceased 
to smile. 

Came and stayed and went, and now when all is 
finished, 
You alone have crossed the melancholy 
stream ; 
Yours the pang, but his, his, the undiminished, 
Undecaying gladness, undeparted dream. 

All that life contains of torture, toil, and treason, 
Shame, dishonour, death, to him were but a 
name. 
Here, a boy, he dwelt through all the singing 
season 
And ere the day of sorrow, departed as he 
came. 1 

Facsimile No. 12 contains a portion of 
"Our Lady of the Snows" (No. 23 of Under- 
woods). In the first line Stevenson seems 
originally to have written "man" instead of 
"men," the present reading. In the second 
line he substituted, in the printed version, 
the weak 

With agonizing folds of flesh 

i For variations see the Widen er Catalogue, page 44. 

[48] 



j * 

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Facsimile No. 12 



for the strong line in the present manu- 
script — 

In that Nessus robe of flesh, 

desiring perhaps to avoid a commonplace of 
mythology ; or fearing that readers untrain- 
ed in the classics might not recognize the 
Centaur whose blood proved mortal to his 
slayer, Hercules. Lines 5-8 — 

Whom the bold heart beating high, 
Yet prompts to suffer and enjoy, 
And like the soldier's drum, its sound 
Recruits and calls the passions round 

were omitted from the printed version, pos- 
sibly not only to get rid of the antiquated 
rhyme, but also to avoid reminding readers 
of a famous ode by Collins. Lines 11-14 were 
likewise omitted, with the loss, it would seem, 
of two rather good, although not highly indi- 
vidual, verses : — 

To hold the peace, to fold the hands, 
And in unnoticeable sands 
Drain out the useless lees of time, 
Far from Nature, far from crime. 

The substitution in line 18 of "About my 

[49] 



human" for 'About my father's" both avoids 
a suggestion of the Scriptures, which might 
offend some readers, and imparts to the pass- 
age a true Stevensonian flavor. 

Facsimile No. 13 affords little that requires 
comment. Stevenson apparently liked to 
make lists, — here one of proverbs which he 
may have intended to work into rhymes. The 
sheet also yields a new stanza the substance 
of which possesses value, whatever may be 
thought of the form : — 



■r> J 



Plough land and lea, stubble and trees, 
Nature's aid is silent for ever; 

So one standing hears and sees 
Men deducing and talking clever, 

But cares no whit for them or these. 

Facsimile No. 14 is important if, as seems 
plausible from the character of the initial 
verses and from the proverb, "Give a dog a 
bad name and hang him," strung along down 
the right-hand margin, we may assume that 
the following uncouth poem was suggested 
by Stevenson's own stormy and somewhat 
unpromising youth in Edinburgh. So far as 

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we know, it has never been printed else- 
where. — 

For laughing I very much vote, 

Yet was never opposed to the church ; , 

So why do grave people agree 

To leave me alone in the lurch? 

From my birth 1 a desirable youth, 

In amenity ever I shone, 
Yet no merry andrew was I 

To be carelessly flouted upon. 

High, angry and sour are the words 

"With which I have ever been curst, 
And yet though impenitent now, 

I was easily led at the first. 

The remainder of facsimile No. 14 is occu- 
pied by what seems to be a short independent 
poem, over which Stevenson worked with 
more assiduity than success. The somewhat 
bizarre subject might have yielded perhaps — 
when he was in happier vein — verses more 
worthy of his genius ; but even so, it may be 
desirable to transcribe them : — 

i Stevenson seems to have written "bih, '-' but be probably 
intended to write "birth." 

[51] 



Look out, my friend, it's on the card, 

A babe forever squalling hard 

And shorn of any 1 outer aid, 

A person mantled in a plaid 

And bound to be that baby's page 

In nightly pale apprenticeage. 

Facsimile No. 15 represents the conclusion 
of a poem which is so confused in the ar- 
rangement of its lines that perhaps each 
reader will claim the privilege of construct- 
ing his own text. Its date is probably about 
1881, as may be seen from the following bit 
of prose, which does not appear in the fac- 
simile, but is transcribed from another near- 
by page of the original note book. — 

"It is impossible to keep lines of rail, for 
any great distance, close along the side of a 
range of granite mountains. It is the more 
to be supposed that this 'puma of the moun- 
tains,' as it has been poetically called, acts 
directly on the locomotive engines, since the 
discovery by Mr. Browning that they hear 

i The original seems to contain a superfluous stroke of the 
pen, and might be deciphered as "every" but for the very 
plain initial letter " a. " 

[52] 






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each other's screams across the night and 
tremble like wild animals. Read in a dream 
Thursday, May 12th/81." 

Immediately below this passage follow, 
on page 40 of the note book, the lines begin- 
ning — 

The still air sharpened to a blast, 

as given below. 

Stevenson thought enough of his engine- 
verses, if we may so denominate them, to en- 
ter them in a sort of index he kept on the 
verso of the front cover of his note book — or 
else, as seems unlikely, a later hand has done 
this. One naturally thinks of "Kubla Khan," 
and may, without suggesting any real rivalry 
with that, urge that Stevenson's couplets, 
even if their arrangement be difficult to de- 
termine, constitute one of the most truly 
imaginative poems he ever wrote : — 

Earth's oldest veins our dam and sire, 
Iron chimeras fed with fire 

or 

And in the darkness, far and nigh, 
We heard our iron compeers cry 

[53] 



may be cited in support of this view. But the 
poem, chaotic and unpolished though it be, is 
better than any comments upon it. The first 
five lines are copied from the page in the note 
book immediately preceding the one here re- 
producd in facsimile : — 

The still air sharpened to a blast, 
The canyon thundered as we past ; 
With roar and rattle, scream and clang 
The many-antred mountain rang; 
And plunging from the light of day, 

The many-antred mountain rang, 
And shook through all her pillars, but that 
stead 

In our black stable near the sea 

Five and twenty stalls you see, 

Five and twenty strong are we. 

The lanterns tossed the shadows round, 

Live coals were scattered on the ground ; 

The swarthy ostlers echoing stept, 

But silent all night long we slept. 

Inactive we, steeds of the day, 

And shakers of the mountains lay, 

Earth's oldest 1 veins our dam and sire, 

i Query, "eldest?" 

[54] 



Iron chimaeras fed with fire. 

[We slept; and while we slept, we heard 1 J 

And trembled as we slept to hear, 

All we, 2 the unweary lay at rest, 

The sleepless lamp burned on our crest, 

And in the darkness, far and nigh, 

We heard our iron compeers cry. 

Mom came at last ; the morning star 
Burned in the amber heavens afar ; 
Dew and the early day abroad. 

Facsimiles 16, 17, and 18 3 give us couplets 
intended to make a poem or poems "on wear- 
ing an inhaler with a snout." Some of these 
lines were used in a letter written to Henley 
from Braemar in 1881, and we are informed 
by Sir Sidney Covlin that they were occa- 
sioned by the fact that "Stevenson's uncle, 
Dr. George Balfour, had recommended him 
to wear a specially contrived and hideous res- 
pirator for the inhalation of pine-oil. " Some 

i There is some doubt whether Stevenson meant to keep this 
line or not. In the latter case, a comma should probably re- 
place the period after "fire." 

2 This may possibly be ' ' eve. ' ' 

s Facsimiles 17 and 18 also contain material already treated 
under the discussion of the drafts of poems written for A 
Child's Garden. 

[ 55 ] 



persons may think the lines scarcely more 
comely than the instrument they celebrate, 
but, since the letter to Henley is printed in 
Stevenson's correspondence, it is probably 
well to give such readers as care for R. L. S. 
in his jocular moods a chance to peruse the 
original couplets from which a portion of 
that letter was derived, even if the language 
is sometimes more expressive than elegant. — 

Sir, while we tread the paths of day 
Still downward slopes the narrowing way, 
And still, alas ! on one and all, 
Undue humiliations fall. 1 

The speaking changes of my face, 
And that well-known, insidious grace, 
Cock of the eye, or strut of walk, 
Or sweet, sequacious flow of talk, 
And all that erst so well became 
My youth, my talents and my name : 
Must these, ere yet my prime be sped, 
These, one and all, be buried 
Beneath, my revered Creator, 

1 Here Stevenson may have intended to interpolate the fol- 
lowing lines, which appear in the right-hand margin: — 
If oil of pines I now must breathe 
Here all my arts let me bequeath, 
My arts, my hopes, 

[56] 



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An air-nasal respirator! 

Must I, alas ! disfigured go 

Among my fellows, to and fro — 

Among the ladies, in and out, 

Blessed with an artificial snout? 

Ariel to Bottom altered, Don 

Giovanni, with a false face on, 

Must I — ye graces, pause and hear! — 

Angel de-angelised appear? 

With my pig's snout upon my face 

I now inhale, with fishy grace, 

My gills outflapping right and left — 

01. pin. sylvest. 1 I am bereft 

Of a great deal of charm by this — 

Not quite the bull's eye for a kiss — 

But like a gnome of olden time 

Or boguey in a pantomine. 

For ladies' love I once was fit, 

But now am rather out of it. 

Where 'er I go revolted curs 

Snap round my military spurs ; 

The children all retire in fits 

And scream their bellowses to bits. 

Little I care — the worst 's been done ; 

Now let the cold, impoverished sun 

Drop frozen from its orbit — let 

i Oil of pinus sylvestris, said to be the only British species 
of pine. 

[57] 



Fuiy and fire, cold, wind and wet, 

And cataclysmal, mad reverses 

Rage through the federate universes ; 

Let Lanisin [ ?] triumph, cakes and ale, 

Whiskey and hock and claret fail, 

Tobacco, Love and Letters perish, 

And all that cultured man should cherish — 

You it may touch — not me : I dwell 

Too deep, already, deep in hell ; 

Too deep in grief already lie, 

And nothing can befall — damn ! — 

To make me uglier than I am. 

Time was when physical disorders 
Bloomed bright in the poetic borders ; 
Heroes and heroines together 
Slunk southward from the winter weather ; 
From Astrakhan to the Atlantic 
No malady was more romantic. 
Time is : the courtly auscultator 
Breathes " air-nasal respirator," 
Breathes but the word ; and at the sound 
Fate from your fancies cuts the ground ; 
The fabled charm dissolves like winking, 
And leaves you both deformed and stinking. 

Conceive — you've only three, I hope, 
A section of black telescope ; 

[58] 









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In shape it apes, though rather big, 
The snout of the domestic pig ; 
On either hand — I tell no crammers- 
Valves like minute piano-hammers 
Go up and down with every breath 
To make a sexton laugh to death. 1 

Facsimile No. 19 may be passed over with 
but little comment. It, however, contains a 
few apparently unpublished lines that are 
worthy of scrutiny, notably the following : — 

Royal ladies are not all 
Fit to kiss a country thrall ; 
Famous bards (no time ago) 
Sing old songs, unhearkened to : 
With attention use your eyes, 
Here 2 a proverb buried lies, 
With old wisdom shining lit, 
Terse as is the soul of wit. 

The following lines, more typically Steven- 
sonian in spirit than in poetic beauty, appear 

1 Other lines that are associated with this effusion may be 
obtained by any reader who will closely examine facsimile 
No. 18. 

2 Stevenson carelessly wrote ' ' Hear, ' ' although it is barely 
possible to construct a meaning with "Hear" by mentally in- 
terpolating ' ' which ' ' after ' ' proverb. ' ' 

[59] 



at the bottom of the sheet. They were prob- 
ably written while he was living at Davos. 

Our high, alfresco, Alpine kind of life, 

Tho ' dull, I say, is free at least from strife. 

Here you can wear, unchid, your oldest clo' — 

A fair set-off to what you undergo. 

You sit or walk, do that or this, 

Each as though all the place were his ; 

Or bet terrific sums perhaps, 

On ... . [f J 1 or other billiard chaps. 

Facsimiles 20 and 21 are given as evidence 
of the care with which Stevenson labored on 
the verses "In Scots' ' that make up the 
second book of Under woods. Number 20 rep- 
resents a portion of ' ' The Maker to Posteri- 
ty," with new material; Number 21 repre- 
sents in a similar way "A Lowden Sabbath 
Morn." 2 

Facsimile No. 22 contains an amusing set 
of seemingly unpublished couplets addressed 
to Henley, in which Stevenson says that, 
since — 

i Possibly the reader may find some amusement in decipher- 
ing this word. It is perhaps the name of some friend who 
was a billiard player. 

2 See the Bibliophile edition of 1916, II, 152-153. 

[60] 



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[JLE NO. 21 



"Jane," and Number 25 may be deciphered 
by those Stevensonians who are interested in 
the mock elegiac sonnets which their favorite 
author composed in memory of the Edin- 
burgh publican, Peter Brash — a series 
which may be found in the Widener Cata- 
logue. Number 26, taken from Stevenson's 
"Academic Exercise Book," doubtless repre- 
sents his method of adorning a note book 
during a tiresome lecture. He thought enough 
of one professor to be willing to devote a 
whole volume to his memory ; but as the lines 
of 1874 (printed in another Bibliophile vol- 
ume), "Here he comes, big with Statistics," 
clearly show, he was by no means enamoured 
of all the gentlemen who lectured to him dur- 
ing his student years. Precisely whom he 
caricatured in the drawing here reproduced 
has not apparently been determined, but the 
notes on which the speaker stands in the fac- 
simile seem to justify the young artist's 
comical portrait. The last two, Numbers 27 
and 28 (which, with the one in the front of 
the book, complete the twenty-nine) seem to 
require no editorial comment. 
To begin with the Stevenson of A Child's 

[ 62 ] 



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Garden and to end with the Stevenson of the 
bored student period may seem at first blush 
a questionable procedure. Yet, after all, a 
"Workshop" volume will possess little value 
if it does not serve to bring into greater relief 
the sheerly human qualities of the writer to 
whom it is devoted. It is chiefly Stevenson's 
inexhaustible humanity, rather than the per- 
fection of his literary art or the power and 
charm of his genius, that endears him to most 
of his readers. That humanity finds higher 
expression in the period of the famous ro- 
mances and in the Samoan years, but it is 
abundantly manifest also in his early verses 
and in what we know about his college days. 
There is nothing more human than exaspera- 
tion w r ith a bore, and, although Stevenson 
later acquired much of the patience of the 
philosophic mind and of the charitable heart, 
we need not apologize for taking leave of him 
as an irreverent caricaturist of some Edin- 
burgh pundit. 



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